Silly, Pandering Politicians Introduce Silly, Pandering 'Cyber Grinch' Law That Would Ban Buying Bots

from the the-grinch-turns-out-good-in-the-end dept

In December of 1983, I had just turned 9 years old, and all of my friends wanted Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. They were everywhere, and are remembered as one of the most well known holiday crazes in which scarcity of the toy, and overwhelming demand, resulted in parents absolutely losing their minds trying to find the dolls. My parents, instead, told me that the dolls were impossible to find, or super expensive if they could be found, and told me to expect something else instead. I never got a Cabbage Patch Kid, and I survived the experience (and learned a bit about supply and demand... and mass hysteria).

Anyway, I'm thinking of that experience from nearly 40 years ago today upon reading about the new "Stop Cyber Grinches from Stealing Christmas" bill, which has been announced via a press release with no actual bill text attached (which really shouldn't ever happen). However, as described, the bill would effectively outlaw "bots" that buy up all of the popular toys in order to resell them at jacked up prices:

On Cyber Monday and with holiday shopping underway, Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY), Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) today announced the introduction of the Stopping Grinch Bots Act. Their bicameral bill will crack down on cyber Grinches using “bot” technology to quickly buy up whole inventories of popular holiday toys and resell them to parents at higher prices. These third-party sellers use bots to bypass security measures and manipulate online sales systems to buy toys, leading to some toys being almost impossible to buy online or in stores at retail prices, exacerbating shortages caused by stressed supply chains.

“At a time when families should be able to spend time with their loved ones, digital “Grinch bots” are forcing Americans to scour online sites in the hopes of finding an affordable gift or paying exorbitant prices for a single toy,” said Tonko. “These bots don’t just squeeze consumers, they pose a problem for small businesses, local retailers and other entrepreneurs trying to ensure they have the best items in stock for their customers. Our Grinch Bots Act works to level the playing field and prevent scalpers from sucking hardworking parents dry this holiday season. I urge my colleagues to join me in passing this legislation immediately to stop these Grinch bots from stealing the holidays.”

And, sure, it sucks that bots are buying up popular items and then jacking up the prices, but is that really a situation that Congress needs to get involved in? Not all bad things need new regulations. And... I'm not one to necessarily say that the free market solves all problems, but this certainly seems like one that the market itself can and should deal with on its own. Companies can produce more of hot products. Retailers can put in place technical solutions to deal with bots and bulk buyers. And, like me and the Cabbage Patch Kids, kids can learn that they don't actually need the hottest toy on the planet (and parents can realize they don't need to buy their kids those products either).

I'm sure it must be good politics for a bunch of elected officials to claim that they're "saving Christmas," but that doesn't mean that it's good policy.

Filed Under: ben ray lujan, bots, buying, christmas, chuck schumer, demand, holidays, paul tonko, richard blumenthal, supply

Huge Protests Across Europe Protest Article 13; Politician Lies And Claims They Were Paid To Be There

from the not-bots dept

As expected, people took to the streets in the EU this week to protest the EU Copyright Directive, the censorship filters of Article 13, and the snippet tax in Article 11. Most of the protests took place in Germany, where reports are that over 150,000 protesters showed up to let their elected officials know that this law is a disaster (other reports put the number closer to 200,000 protesters).

Indeed, things got so crazy, that the Berlin police announced that there were way more people than expected, and protesters needed to change their planned route to roads that could better accommodate such a large crowd.

Many of the signs included memes, or the statement "we are not bots," which appears to have confused some in the media, such as DW.com, which claimed people said: "banners included the phrase "We are not bots," a reference to robotic-like social media posts." Uh, no. The reference to "we are not bots" is in direct response to supporters of Article 13 lying and claiming that all of the arguments against Article 13 were simply coming from internet bots as a way to discount the concerns of millions of EU residents as well as those of us around the world.

Of course, what happens when the politicians who insisted it was "just bots" arguing against Article 13 have to contend with the fact that at least 150,000 real live humans showed up on their doorstep to protest? They just keep lying. German MEP Daniel Caspary, who chairs the large CDU/CSU group in the EU Parliament told a German publication a completely made up lie -- reminiscent of the kind of "fake news" propaganda that has been used elsewhere, that all of the protesters were actually paid to be there. He literally called them "bought protesters" and said that a non-profit organization offered protesters €450 to show up at the protest. And then insisted that this was all a threat to democracy (per the translation):

"Now it is obviously being attempted to prevent the adoption of copyright even with bought protesters. Up to 450 euros are offered by a so-called NGO for the demonstrators. The money seems to come, at least partially, from major American Internet corporations. When American corporations with massive use of disinformation and bought protesters try to prevent laws, our democracy is under threat. "

Think about that for a second. A major political leader is so infatuated with his false belief that real people couldn't possibly be upset about the plan to fundamentally move away from an open internet, that he insists Google must have paid the protesters €450 each to show up. That's insane, and nothing that any elected official should be saying. Journalist Emanuel Karlsten looked into the details of this and found that Caspary had taken a completely different bit of information and used it to attack the integrity of all the protesters. What had really happened was a few weeks earlier, the digital rights organization EDRi had offered to cover travel costs for a small number of activists to come talk to MEPs. It was not for the demonstrations, but for a small group of activists, who otherwise could not afford to meet the MEPs in person, to travel. Somewhere around a dozen such grants were made and it allowed this small group of folks to meet with MEPs last week, totally unrelated to the protests.

As more and more people started calling out Caspary, he refused to correct his misleading statement for an entire day, before insisting that everyone misunderstood him and he never really meant that all demonstrators got paid. However, the "statement" he links to is simply more pro-Article 13 propaganda, insisting that the protesters cannot be taken seriously because some idiot sent Axel Voss a death threat. Meanwhile, Caspary's own thread -- that he insists is clarifying his position -- then immediately says we should still criticize financial support for those seeking to lobby politicians. He says that as if the lobbyists in favor of Article 13 didn't also provide "financial support" for some musicians and creators to go lobby them as well. It is standard practice for NGOs to pay travel costs for activists to present their position before elected officials, because otherwise politicians would only hear from lobbyists, and not from the actual people. This happens on all sides of every issue -- and it's not paying them for their testimony, but for their travel expenses to get somewhere they couldn't otherwise go.

So I'm curious if Caspary will now agree to discount any lobbying he heard in favor of Article 13 from artists who received travel support to go see him too? Or does his position only cover the other side?

Meanwhile, as Communia noted, in quite a contrast, at the same time as these protests were happening across Germany and elsewhere, in France, supporters of Article 13 -- the execs from collection societies who stand to profit (literally) the most from the passage of Article 13 -- gathered to drink champagne and hold up little yellow pieces of paper in support of the law:

You really should click to open the images and to see the contrast. Thousands upon thousands of people take to the streets to protest against a law that will close off the open internet, while those who will profit from such a closed internet sip champagne at a private party and smile meekly while holding up pieces of paper in support of screwing over the public. How nice.

Either way, no matter what lies politicians tell themselves, they might want to think about so many people coming out to protest over this issue, especially given that the next EU Parliamentary elections are in just a few months. Or will they just claim that Google paid them to vote, too?

All images in this post come from Netzpolitik, which says they are free for anyone to use -- which may only be true until Article 13 is enacted into law, at which point, it would be an impossible liability risk to continue posting them on most sites.

Filed Under: article 11, article 13, bots, copyright, daniel caspary, eu, eu copyright directive, filters, germany, protests

As EU Politicians Insist That It's All Just 'Bots' And 'Astroturf' Tons Of People Showing Up In Real Life To Protest

from the look-at-all-those-bots dept

One of the more obnoxious elements of the EU politicians brushing off the concerns of the public concerning the EU Copyright Directive, is their repeated, insulting and incorrect, claim that there really isn't a public upswell against Articles 11 and 13 and that it's all just manufactured by Google and "bots" and "astroturfing." We've already pointed out that nearly 5 million people have signed the Change.org petition protesting Article 13 -- making it the largest petition on that site ever. And those are real people signing on.

And those real people are now showing up to protest as well. As highlighted by Drew Wilson at FreezeNet:

The ink has barely dried on the finalizing of Article 11 and Article 13 and now, protests are beginning to emerge in Europe.

All over Twitter there are examples of large protests springing up over the Copyright Directive.

I especially like the text of this one which, translated, says "But we are all just bots."

Boy those "bots" sure crossed the uncanny valley in a hurry. Here's another one, saying: "We are currently at #Artikel13Demo the one in Cologne or as MEP of the CDU, Sven Schulze would say: "A real fake action."-Yes exactly! You see, we're all just bots!" Look at all those bots:

And some more bots:

I'm sensing a theme:

Damn, that's a lot of bots.

I'm beginning to think that European politicians who mocked critics of Articles 11 and 13 as "bots" may realize that that was a strategic mistake. The "bots" have mobilized -- and they sure look like human beings who will be voting for the EU Parliament in May...

Filed Under: article 11, article 13, bots, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, eu parliament, protests

German Politician Thinks Gmail Constituent Messages Are All Faked By Google

from the not-how-it-works dept

Christopher Clay alerts us to the latest Google Derangement Syndrome from an EU Bureaucrat. Last year, we noted that various EU politicians kept insisting that all of the complaints about their awful plan were due to Google lobbying and astroturfing -- when the reality showed that nearly all of the lobbying came from legacy copyright players.

However, German MEP Sven Schulze must have thought he was really on to something in claiming he had real proof of Google astroturfing. In a tweet (in German) he claimed that because all of the complaints he's getting seem to come from people with Gmail addresses, it's proof of fakery. No, really. Here's a translation (courtesy of Google, of course) of his tweet:

Now coming back every second of messages about # upload filter & # Article 13 pure. Apart from the fact that these contents are not correct, ALL come from # Gmail accounts. 🤔Man # google , I know that you are angry, but ye have this # fake really necessary action?

Really now? Perhaps Schultze is unaware that (as of the most recent public stats), Gmail is used by 1.5 billion people. These days, it's pretty typical for lots and lots of people to use Gmail as their personal (and often professional) email address. To claim that seeing Gmail emails proves Google is astroturfing is... nutty. And, it would appear that Schulze's followers recognize just how idiotic this looks.

How do you say ratioed in German?

And many of those 4.5 thousand replies are ruthlessly mocking him for being completely clueless.

I'm guessing he'll blame Google for all those replies as well?

Filed Under: article 13, bots, copyright, email, eu, eu copyright directive, gmail, lobbying, sven schulze

New Report Details Massive Mysterious Influence Campaign On Twitter

from the something's-happening dept

Over the weekend, the group Guardians.ai released a fascinating report detailing what appears to be a massive influence campaign taking shape on Twitter. By way of disclosure, one of the three key authors of the report, Brett Horvath, is also one of the key people behind the election simulation game that we helped create and run, though I have nothing to do with this new report. The report is fascinating, and if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, Bloomberg also has a write up.

The key to the report is that they have identified some truly fascinating patterns that they've spotted among a cluster of users on Twitter, who, at the very least appear to be acting in a manner that suggests some attempt to influence others. I should note that unlike other such reports that jump to conclusions, the authors of this report are very, very, very clear that they're not saying these are "bots." Nor are they saying these are Russian trolls. Nor are they saying that a single source is controlling them. Nor are they saying that everyone engaged in the activity they spotted is officially part of whatever is happening. They note it is entirely possible that some very real people are a part of what's happening and might not even know it.

However, what they uncovered does appear strange and notable. It certainly looks like coordinated behavior, at least in part, and it appears to be designed to boost certain messages. The report specifically looks at statements on Twitter about voter fraud using the hashtag #voterfraud, but it appears that this "network" is targeting much more than that. What made the report's authors take notice is that in analyzing instances of the use of the tag #voterfraud, they noticed that it appeared to have a "heartbeat." That is, it would spike up and down on a semi-regular basis, based on nothing in particular. There wasn't a specific news hook why this entire network would suddenly talk about #voterfraud, and they wouldn't talk about it all the time. But... every month or so there would suddenly be a spike.

From there, they started digging into the accounts involved in this particular activity. And they found a very noticeable pattern:

We wanted to know how these accounts were coming onto Twitter and gaining mentions at such a high velocity — what was leading accounts to gain influence, so quickly? So we took a sample set of accounts from a group of suspicious Voter Fraud accounts and started looking at their activity day-by-day, starting at day one. What we began to notice is a pattern for how the influence machine might be working, and how coordination could be happening.

Here's the consistent network pattern we saw:

• User signs up for an account.
• User starts replying to multiple accounts—some known verified Twitter users and many other accounts that are also on our list of actors, or that fit a similar profile.
• The replies tend to contain: text, memes, hashtags, and @mentions of other accounts, building on common themes.
• At some point the pattern shifts from being all replies to original tweets. Those original tweets contain the same types of content as their replies do.
• It appears that this pattern cycles and repeats when the next batch of new accounts come online. The next batch starts replying to the existing, newly influential accounts, and carry on with the same sequence of events for gaining influence.

The report highlights this pattern with a few example accounts, though the full study looked at (and continues to look at) many, many more. What you see over and over again are Twitter feeds of people who seem to do little other than constantly tweet pro-Trump memes and disinformation, and yet magically get thousands and tens of thousands of retweets, often coming out of nowhere. Here's one example:

The gray line at the bottom is the number of tweets. The black line is the number of mentions from others. Notice how it goes from nothing to around 10,000 in no time? Sometimes the accounts are more or less dormant for a while, before suddenly becoming massively popular for no clear reason at all:

Again, as the report makes clear, these aren't necessarily bots (though, they may be). They aren't necessarily even aware that they're a part of something. But the patterns seen over and over and over and over again are uncanny. And it certainly provides strong circumstantial evidence of some sort of influence operation -- and it's one that appears to continue to grow and grow.

As the report notes:

We don’t know why this activity is occurring, or who is behind it. However, the best we can do is look at the data around what’s actually happening. What we've discovered along the way is that there are overlapping patterns of behavior, demonstrating some form of coordination.

We think it's possible that some of these accounts don't realize that they're coordinating or part of a larger influence network. For example, one of these sample accounts might genuinely care about Voter Fraud. A bad actor, coordinating large numbers of accounts could find this person’s tweets useful, then amplify those tweets through thousands of @mentions and replies.

By focusing on the hard data around coordination, we can better understand how public conservations are being distorted and how it affects society. Whatever your views are on Voter Fraud, these accounts and the accounts that amplify them are rapidly accelerating their activity in the lead-up to Election Day.

Similarly, of course, it's not clear that this is actually having any impact on anyone's views. But it's at least worth looking at what happens when there is what appears to be massively coordinated activity, mostly focused around spreading disinformation regarding the election and more. The full methodology of the report is available on the site, as are the names of 200 of the accounts studied.

What's fascinating, of course, is the sheer size of what's happening, and the level of coordination necessary to make it happen. Twitter's response to the report (as noted in the Bloomberg article) is pretty much what you'd expect Twitter to say:

“While we prohibit coordinated malicious behavior, and enforce accordingly, we’ve also seen real people who share the same views organize using Twitter,” the company’s statement said. “This report effectively captures what often happens when hot button issues gain attention and traction in active groups.”

Indeed, that's part of what's so tricky here. Could this kind of thing happen organically? Well, certainly much of it can. Lots of people who share the same views on any particular subject often will see surges in conversations around those topics, including lots of retweets, mentions and replies. But the pattern here definitely looks different. When these things happen organically, they tend to have a fairly different rhythm, either a lot more sustained, or the spikes are much more spread out and explainable (e.g., there was some news event that tied to the topic). Similarly, it is hard to see how so many pseudononymous people, who no one else really knows, magically all jump up to thousands or tens of thousands of mentions with no clear explanation for their sudden and sustained fame.

But this is also why Twitter is put in an impossible position if it's expected to spot all of this. Even with so much evidence, it's still possible that what Guardians.ai spotted was organically formed. It may seem unlikely, but how can you tell? And you can bet that there are some with less than virtuous intent, who are actively figuring out ways to increasingly make all of this activity look organic. Expecting that Twitter, or any company, can always magically determine what is and what is not "authentic" behavior online, is an impossible task. And the very fact that it might sweep up some perfectly innocuous accounts in the process also makes it troubling to expect that the platform should be in charge of sorting out who's who and who's real in these kinds of situations. But, then again, if these kinds of disinformation campaigns truly are having an impact on influencing the public, that too should be a concern. Either way, as the report highlights, there is still much work to be done in analyzing how social networks are being used to influence the public.

Filed Under: bots, campaigns, coordination, influence, politics, social media
Companies: twitter

California's War On 'Bots' Could Be A Steep Uphill Climb

from the disinformation-nation dept

While California's new net neutrality law grabbed the lion's share of press headlines, the state last week also passed legislation attempting to fix an equally complicated problem: bots. The rise of bots has played a major role in not only helping companies and politicians covertly advertise products or positions, but they've also played a starring role in Russia's disinformation efforts. That in turn has fueled what's often not-entirely-productive paranoia, as users online accuse those they disagree with of being bots, instead of, say, just genuinely terrible but real human beings.

Last Sunday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB1001, a bill that requires companies or individuals to label any bots clearly as bots. The bill explains the legislation this way:

"This bill would, with certain exceptions, make it unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. The bill would make these provisions operative on July 1, 2019."

While this is well intentioned, you can see how enforcement could prove to be a bit of a problem. Most of the scientific analysis of what constitutes a bot hasn't been particularly solid. Hamilton 68, for example, widely cited in the media as a definitive and scientific way to measure Russian bot influence online, has been widely derided as little more than educated guesswork at best.

That's not to say that "bots" aren't a problem. A disclosure from Twitter back in June noted that the company had "identified and challenged" more than 9.9 million accounts each week last May for being "potentially spammy or automated accounts." Those numbers were up dramatically from the 6.4 million per week in December 2017, and the 3.2 million million per week in September. Initially, fear of hampering ad impression metrics likely hindered many companies' interest in addressing this problem, but the exposure of Russia's online gamesmanship seems to have shifted that thinking dramatically.

California's efforts on this front were born from genuine annoyance at the problem. State Senator Robert M. Hertzberg, the bill's author, ran into the problem face first when numerous fake Facebook and Twitter accounts began berating him for a bail reform bill he proposed earlier this year. In a report in the New York Times last July, he found himself inundated with bogus attacks by bots, who did everything they could do to scuttle his proposal (note how he didn't clarify how he differentiated between bots or just terrible people).

I spoke briefly about California's new legislation with the EFF's Jeremy Gillula, who was quick to highlight the enforcement and free speech problems inherent in California's attempt to fix a problem we don't fully understand:

"Enforcement is definitely going to be difficult. Governments aren't in a good position to be able to tell whether or not an account on social media is a bot or not. And we wouldn't want them to be--that would require that they know or are able to easily find out where, when, and how every post to social media was made. That would destroy any possibility of anonymous speech online."

Gillula told me that the original bill proposed by Hertzberg was much worse, in that it would have made chatbots like Olivia Taters illegal simply because it's not clearly labeled as a bot. The EFF also successfully encouraged Hertzberg's office to eliminate a proposal that would have forced all websites to have functions letting users report bots. Again, because of the problems stated above (a culture of paranoia and difficulty differentiating bots from ordinary human jackasses), the end result could have been potentially catastrophic for speech online:

"We've seen this sort of takedown/labeling regime abused time and again in the past. For example, Twitter and Facebook users can already report posts they think violate the platforms’ community standards. Online platforms also have to deal with complaints under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, a federal law meant to protect copyright online, which forces platforms to take down content. In both cases, malicious users have figured out how to abuse these reporting systems so that they can get speech they don’t like erased from the Internet. The targets victims of such abuse have been Muslim civil rights leaders, pro-democracy activists in Vietnam, pro-science accounts targeted by anti-vaccination groups, and Black Lives Matter activists, whose posts have been censored due to efforts by white supremacists."

One one hand, you can see how bringing a little more transparency to who is running bots and what their motivations are could be helpful. But actually identifying bots and removing them is currently more art than science. In the interim, it's probably a good idea to avoid creating solutions that, in time, could create even bigger problems (like an entirely new takedown system open to abuse) than the one you're trying to fix.

Filed Under: bots, california, labelling, misrepresentation

Cali Lawmakers Pushing For 72-Hour Bot Removal Requirements For Social Media Companies

from the bad-idea,-worse-implementation dept

Following in the footsteps of misguided European lawmakers, California legislators have introduced a time-sensitive "remove speech or else" law targeting social media sites.

They’ve introduced a bill that would give online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter three days to investigate whether a given account is a bot, to disclose that it’s a bot if it is in fact auto-generated, or to remove the bot outright.

The bill would make it illegal for anyone to use an automated account to mislead the citizens of California or to interact with them without disclosing that they’re dealing with a bot. Once somebody reports an illegally undisclosed bot, the clock would start ticking for the social media platform on which it’s found. The platforms would also be required to submit a bimonthly report to the state’s Attorney General detailing bot activity and what corrective actions were taken.

This is ridiculous for a number of reasons. First, it assumes the purpose of most bots is to mislead, hence the "need" for upfront disclosure. The ridiculousness of this part of the law's many faulty premises is only further underscored by a bot created by the legislator behind the bill, Bob Hertzberg. His bot's bio says [emphasis added]:

I am a bot. Automated accounts like mine are made to misinform & exploit users. But unlike most bots, I’m transparent about being a bot! #SB1001 #BotHertzberg

Hertzberg's bot must have been made to "misinform and exploit users," at least according to its own Twitter bio. And yet, the account's tweets appear to disseminate actual correct info, like subcommittee webcasts and community-oriented info. It's good the bot is transparent. But it's terrible because the transparency immediately follows a line claiming automated accounts are made apparently solely to misinform people.

Plenty of automated accounts never misinform or exploit users. Techdirt's account automatically tweets each newly-published post. So do countless other bots tied into content-management systems. But the bill -- and bill creator's own words -- paint bots as evil, even while deploying a bot in an abortive attempt to make a point.

Going on from there, the bill demands sites create a portal for bot reporting and starts the removal clock when a report is made. User reporting may function better than algorithms when detecting bots spreading misinformation (putting bots in charge of bot removal), but this still puts social media companies in the uncomfortable position of being arbiters of truth. And if they make the "wrong" decision and leave a bot up, the government is free to punish them for noncompliance.

The bill also provides no avenue for those targeted to challenge a bot report or removal. (And no option for sites to challenge the government's determination that they've failed to remove bots.) This is a key omission which will lead to unchecked abuse.

Finally, there's the motivation for the bill. Some of it stems from a desire to punish "fake news," a term no government has ever clearly defined. Some of it comes from evidence of Russian interference in the last presidential election. But much of the bill's impetus is tied to vague notions of "rightness." Hertzberg himself exhumes a long-dead catchphrase to justify his bill's existence.

"We need to know if we are having debates with real people or if we’re being manipulated," said Democratic State Senator Bob Hertzberg, who introduced the bill. "Right now we have no law and it’s just the Wild West."

So, summary executions of bots by social media posse members? Is that the "Wild West" you mean, one historically notorious for its lack of due process and violent overreactions?

Here's the other excuse for bad lawmaking, via an advocate for terrible legislation.

"California feels a bit guilty about how our hometown companies have had a negative impact on society as a whole,” said Shum Preston, the national director of advocacy and communications at Common Sense Media, a major supporter of Hertzberg’s bill. “We are looking to regulate in the absence of the federal government. We don’t think anything is coming from Washington."

So, secondhand guilt justifies the direct regulation of third-party service providers? That's almost worse than no reason at all.

And this isn't the only bad bot bill being considered. Assemblymember Marc Levine wants all bots to tied to verified human beings. The same goes for any online advertising purchases. Levine feels his bill will help fight the bot problem, but his belief is predicated on a profound misunderstanding of human behavior.

By identifying bots, users will be better informed and able to identify whether or not the power of a group’s influence is legitimate. This will mitigate the promulgation of misinformation and influence of unauthentic social media campaigns.

Yes, telling people the stuff they think is legitimate isn't legitimate always results in people ditching "illegitimate" news sources. Especially when that info is coming from a government they don't like presiding over a state many wish would just fall into the ocean. Trying to fight a bot problem largely associated with alt-right groups with legislation from coastal elites is sure to win hearts and minds.

A bot-reporting portal with no recourse provisions -- and a possibile "real name" requirement added into the mix -- will become little more than a handy tool for harassment and hecklers. The cost of these efforts will be borne entirely by social media companies, which also will be held responsible for the mere existence of bots the Californian government feels might be misleading its residents. It's bad lawmaking all around, propelled by misplaced guilt and overstated fears about the democratic process.

Filed Under: automation, bob hertzberg, bots, california, censorship, fake news, marc levine, regulations, social media, speech

Senator Klobuchar Thinks We Need To Start Fining Social Media Companies For Not Removing Bots Fast Enough

from the nothing-more-automated-than-a-knee-jerk dept

Cool. Let's just throw more legislation at the problem.

Social media giants Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. should be fined if they don't weed out automated accounts, or bots, trying to influence U.S. public opinion, said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar.

“I think that would be a great idea,” Klobuchar, of Minnesota, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday when asked whether the companies should face fines if they fail to act after the government discovers the bots.

First, let's stop giving politicians bad ideas. Whoever prompted this response from Klobuchar has bits on their hands if this ever becomes law. Klobuchar can come up with her own bad ideas. There's absolutely no reason journalists should be floating ideas containing First Amendment collateral damage. Let Klobuchar come up with her own terrible legislation. It's not like she hasn't done it before.

Second, what the hell does this even mean? Weeding out all bots is impossible. Weeding out those the government has noticed might be doable, but they'll likely be replaced with new ones as soon as they're deleted. On top of that, forcing large platforms to cull anything that resembles automation is going to do damage to legitimate accounts that schedule posts in advance and it might result in the removal of truly useful bots, like Brad Heath's Big Cases bot -- one that trawls federal court RSS feeds for cases of interest and posts publicly-available copies of filings locked behind the government's PACER paywall.

Such a task is unfeasible. Legislation like this would only serve as a platform for political grandstanding. Fining tech companies for violations of terms of service by users is ridiculous. It's not as though we don't have enough ongoing threats to service provider immunity. Twitter and Facebook are already trying to wrestle with bot problems, but criminalizing the mere existence of bots doesn't solve the problem. It just makes it easier for the government to monetize the very behavior reps are claiming they want to stamp out. It's an incentive with a government perversion attached.

And Klobuchar, of course, has no idea how platforms with hundreds of millions of users will implement the No Bots Allowed law. All she knows is it's their problem and they're smart enough to figure it out on their own.

“These are the most sophisticated companies in America,” Klobuchar said. “They have brilliant people working there. I believe that they’ve got to put more resources -- maybe it means they make less profits off of ads and other things -- but they’ve got to put the resources into Facebook and Twitter to stop these bots from dominating the accounts.”

Of course! The nerds will do it! They'll take all of the blame and receive none of the credit while the federal government gets into the business of running social media platforms. If a company doesn't have the money to do it (smaller startups), then they just don't get to play. And if platforms struggle financially attempting to please the government while shedding users, so be it. If destroying American companies (and damaging the internet) is what it takes to take down the Russian bot menace, no price (paid by others) is too high.

Finally, there's a good chance the implementation of a law like this would push social media platforms to demand even more personal information from users, eliminating truly anonymous speech and possibly endangering lives/livelihoods of pseudonymous users. Fortunately, these seem to be off-the-cuff response based on a bad set of improv prompts from Meet the Press hosts. But Klobuchar has pushed bad legislation in the past and there's no time like the present to pretend the US government can somehow legislate away foreign influence in US politics.

Filed Under: amy klobuchar, bots, first amendment, free speech, social media

Dozens Of Tech Experts Tell DHS & ICE That Its Social Media Surveillance And Extreme Vetting Should Be Stopped

from the bad-policies dept

Last week dozens of well known technologists sent a letter to Homeland Security arguing that Immigration & Customs Enforcement's (ICE) plans to use technology for "extreme vetting" is a really, really dumb idea.

According to its Statement of Objectives, the Extreme Vetting Initiative seeks to make “determinations via automation” about whether an individual will become a “positively contributing member of society” and will “contribute to the national interests.” As far as we are aware, neither the federal government nor anyone else has defined, much less attempted to quantify, these characteristics. Algorithms designed to predict these undefined qualities could be used to arbitrarily flag groups of immigrants under a veneer of objectivity.

Inevitably, because these characteristics are difficult (if not impossible) to define and measure, any algorithm will depend on “proxies” that are more easily observed and may bear little or no relationship to the characteristics of interest. For example, developers could stipulate that a Facebook post criticizing U.S. foreign policy would identify a visa applicant as a threat to national interests. They could also treat income as a proxy for a person’s contributions to society, despite the fact that financial compensation fails to adequately capture people’s roles in their communities or the economy.

The Extreme Vetting Initiative also aims to make automated determinations about whether an immigrant “intends to commit” terrorism or other crime. However, there is a wealth of literature demonstrating that even the “best” automated decisionmaking models generate an unacceptable number of errors when predicting rare events. On the scale of the American population and immigration rates, criminal acts are relatively rare, and terrorist acts are extremely rare. The frequency of individuals’ “contribut[ing] to national interests” is unknown. As a result, even the most accurate possible model would generate a very large number of false positives - innocent individuals falsely identified as presenting a risk of crime or terr

In short, this is the tech world telling DHS and ICE that its belief that there's a "nerd harder" solution to using computers and algorithms to sniff out terrorists is a load of pure hooey. It may be true, as Arthur C. Clarke once stated, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but the corollary does not apply: not all magical solutions can be implemented in technology. It's kind of ridiculous that actual technologists were needed to explain this to DHS, but that's where things are these days.

Filed Under: automation, bots, dhs, extreme vetting, ice, immigration, social media